Saturday, May 30, 2009
Not quite high life...
i'm going to do a taki today. for those who read THE SPECTATOR you know what i'm talking about. taki's high life happens to be my favorite column . the other is the opposite of taki's and appropriately called low life. if anything low life is even better than taki's high life. being a rather poor bugger with no silver spoon shoved up my throat myself i naturally can identify with jeremy clarke's low life misadventures more than taki's high adventures.
take this not quite recent and sad but rather funny low life misadventure in one february 09 issue. mr clarke was looking forward to watch his football team (low lifers as you know watch soccer as opposed to rugby for the high lifers) that was finally beginning to win matches . and he had to take a three hr train ride to london and change over for another ride on the tube. the thing is he is myopic with one long sighted eye and the other short sighted. his contact lenses were naturally different for his right and left eyes . the only thing is on this particular day he put them the wrong way. and so he decided to change them in the train toilet but as you probably can guess, he dropped them in the yellow puddle on the floor. after some further mishaps he was finally able to clean and wore the lenses the right way and to drown his sorrow while waiting for the tube he took a beer and justas he raised the can to his mouth a policeman came up to him and said 'sorry, you can't do that here' in polish accent. and just then he realized that he left his football ticket at home....and here's another lovely one.
taki's on the other hand is the total opposite. he hobnobbed with all the right group, all those sarkozys, the putins and one of these days i'm sure the obamas too. he name dropped like there's no tomorrow. well i can do that a little if i wanted to. for example, at one time i knew anwar ibrahim quite well. i mean personally. in my student days i once had him in my room with a gaggle of his admirers listening to him making fun of umno. but even in those days i never liked him very much. during this same student days one of my friends who is now a vice chancellor of a local universities and i once drove anwar to an airport. my friend happened to be a great admirer of anwar and wanted to wait till the plane depart and wanted to be with anwar as long as he could but not me. the moment we sent anwar safely to the airport i said let's go and anwar wasn't too amused with me. one time many years ago my vice chancellor friend came to my office and invited me to join him to campaign for one of anwar's close friends who stood on unmo ticket . i chased him out of my office with mild insults and we were never that close anymore from then on. but he is a good guy. not like most umno garbage.
and about these three PAS deputy president candidates. i've observed all the three up close a few times. or at least with mat sabu and nasaruddin. as for husam, well my younger brother who is now a syariah court hakim used to work for him and his wife is one of my sisters' good friend. and we get to know about his family life quite intimately. one time nasaruddin came to my sister's home while i also happened to be there. he is a friend of my brother in law. and i get to observe him with his guard's down so to speak. and i can tell you this. he's no PM material. and so is mat sabu. but husam. he's different. there are people who hate his guts and there are people who love him. one of my friends who happened to be one of fairly senior guys in kelantan PAS one time spent hours talking about husam's dark sides. but as a whole i gather that husam is the best among the three. certainly the man that i would like to see as PAS deputy president.
take this not quite recent and sad but rather funny low life misadventure in one february 09 issue. mr clarke was looking forward to watch his football team (low lifers as you know watch soccer as opposed to rugby for the high lifers) that was finally beginning to win matches . and he had to take a three hr train ride to london and change over for another ride on the tube. the thing is he is myopic with one long sighted eye and the other short sighted. his contact lenses were naturally different for his right and left eyes . the only thing is on this particular day he put them the wrong way. and so he decided to change them in the train toilet but as you probably can guess, he dropped them in the yellow puddle on the floor. after some further mishaps he was finally able to clean and wore the lenses the right way and to drown his sorrow while waiting for the tube he took a beer and justas he raised the can to his mouth a policeman came up to him and said 'sorry, you can't do that here' in polish accent. and just then he realized that he left his football ticket at home....and here's another lovely one.
taki's on the other hand is the total opposite. he hobnobbed with all the right group, all those sarkozys, the putins and one of these days i'm sure the obamas too. he name dropped like there's no tomorrow. well i can do that a little if i wanted to. for example, at one time i knew anwar ibrahim quite well. i mean personally. in my student days i once had him in my room with a gaggle of his admirers listening to him making fun of umno. but even in those days i never liked him very much. during this same student days one of my friends who is now a vice chancellor of a local universities and i once drove anwar to an airport. my friend happened to be a great admirer of anwar and wanted to wait till the plane depart and wanted to be with anwar as long as he could but not me. the moment we sent anwar safely to the airport i said let's go and anwar wasn't too amused with me. one time many years ago my vice chancellor friend came to my office and invited me to join him to campaign for one of anwar's close friends who stood on unmo ticket . i chased him out of my office with mild insults and we were never that close anymore from then on. but he is a good guy. not like most umno garbage.
and about these three PAS deputy president candidates. i've observed all the three up close a few times. or at least with mat sabu and nasaruddin. as for husam, well my younger brother who is now a syariah court hakim used to work for him and his wife is one of my sisters' good friend. and we get to know about his family life quite intimately. one time nasaruddin came to my sister's home while i also happened to be there. he is a friend of my brother in law. and i get to observe him with his guard's down so to speak. and i can tell you this. he's no PM material. and so is mat sabu. but husam. he's different. there are people who hate his guts and there are people who love him. one of my friends who happened to be one of fairly senior guys in kelantan PAS one time spent hours talking about husam's dark sides. but as a whole i gather that husam is the best among the three. certainly the man that i would like to see as PAS deputy president.
